Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
corn its color is flavorless, and there are "su," "se" and "sh2" varieties of both white and
yellow corn.
Really, then, it's all just packaging, and which color you prefer will depend to a great
extent on where you live. Different areas of the country prefer different colors of corn.
Generally speaking, white corn is preferred from the mid-Atlantic region through the
South, bicolor is popular in the Northeast and yellow rules almost everywhere else. Most
corn varieties have yellow kernels, so it could be that in some cases white varieties are
preferred because they are less common and therefore in some way "special." Usually,
though, preferences are determined by which color has traditionally been grown in the
area. Sometimes, however, one special variety can influence buyers for generations. A
study in Maine, for example, found that most of the state preferred bicolor corn because
of the high quality of an old variety called Butter & Sugar - but this variety hasn't been
grown commercially in the area for more than twenty years. In the southern part of the
state, people preferred white corn because of a variety called Silver Queen, which is sim-
ilarly antique.
Silver Queen, a very fine "su" variety introduced in 1955, has cast an inordinately long
shadow in the sweet corn world. It has come to represent high quality, the "Cadillac of
corn" as it were. This attraction exists despite the fact that blind taste tests have consist-
ently shown that eaters prefer new "se" and "sh2" varieties. Perhaps more to the point,
hardly anyone grows true Silver Queen commercially anymore, contrary to farm stand
claims.
WHERE THEY'RE GROWN: Corn is one of the most widely grown vegetables,
harvested in significant amounts in twentyfive states. More than half of the total U.S. pro-
duction comes from just three states: Florida, California and New York.
